


he tossed to the sea

by nui (cogito)



Series: Clockhearts [1]
Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Steampunk AU, i wrote this for mechanic haruka i have no other excuse, idk - Freeform, robots!!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1398493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cogito/pseuds/nui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So you lugged another one home, huh?” She says over her shoulder. “Yeah, but this one’s special, I can feel it.” Haruka grins again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he tossed to the sea

When the clock chimes eight, the brunette mechanic pulls his goggles off his face, tossing them onto the table and causing the clatter of some pencils to the ground. They go largely ignored as he also pulls off his gloves with a sigh, placing them on the table beside his goggles. Another day over with no real progress on the project left by his teacher. Even with the detailed schematics that he managed to make of the half-assed blue prints, he only managed to get so far.

His frown is quickly replaced by a smile _.  Oh well,_  he did manage to connect the joints in the fingers earlier this week, so maybe he would actually get somewhere eventually. Slow and steady, wasn’t it?  It wasn’t like his teacher was planning to visit them anytime soon. No one really knew where that guy got off to anyway, so as far as that project went, Haruka wasn’t really worried. Maybe a little disappointed, but not worried.

So instead Haruka heads down his ladder into the living room.  His attention is more focused towards the kitchen, as the smell of food is wafts towards him.  It’s dinnertime, isn’t it?  The girl bent over the stove throws him a glance, and instructs him to set the table with a cutting glance. Haruka grins, opening the cupboards to scour for plates and forks. It was only the two of them today, but it had been this way for a long time.  Haruka didn’t remember the last time anyone else came over for dinner, but it was nice to be able to talk to Takane like this everyday, even if they didn’t have much to say.

Besides, it was better this than eating alone in the hospital.

“Did you wash your hands?” Takane asks, threatening him with a wooden spatula. Haruka blinks, and then look down at his hands.

“I wore gloves, isn’t that enough?”

Takane whacks him with the spatula, and Haruka yelps in pain as he nurses his wounded hand, fleeing to the empty sink to do as Takane tells him. 

_“Jeez.”_

“That’s because Takane’s food makes me impatient! I really want to eat it already!”

Haruka only laughs gently, and Takane feels her face heating up by five degrees as she carries the finished fried rice to the table. 

 

 

 

Mid-dinner, however, Haruka suddenly stops talking. Instead, his eyes are focused outside, as if there was something there that he’d rather pay attention to.  Takane looks out too, following his gaze, but fails to capture what he’s found to captivating. Then, he puts down his chopsticks and bowl.

 “Sorry Takane, I really gotta go, okay—”

“Wait, what—! Haruka! Come back here!”

Haruka runs outside without a second thought without anything in his hands. Takane yells from behind him to put on a coat or stay inside or _something_ , not just go out alone in the rain like that, but he really couldn’t care less as he runs umbrella-less into the street. The scrap of red isn’t hard to miss. Red was a rare colour to see on the streets, and even rarely seen in heaps of garbage.  It was important, vivid dye, who would throw something that important out?

It isn’t long before he notices the figure collapsed into the corner, huddled in on itself like some sort of broken doll. Haruka’s worry gets the better of him as he pulls apart the bags of garbage to free the thing in red. When he places his hand against the figure’s shoulder, however, the metallic feeling tingles his skin. 

Judging by the tattered red jacket around his shoulders, it’s a rather important robot instead of a human. 

Tentatively, he mumbles, “H-hey, can you hear me?”

No response.  That figures.

Haruka bites his lower lip.  Takane would be mad if he lugged the new robot into his flat, but he’d be guiltier if he left it out to die.  If it had a name, if it could be activated, then Haruka felt like he had a job to do so, that it was his obligation as a mechanic to keep as many robots up and running as possible.  So Haruka gives the new robot another shake, gently calling out to it as if he was going to get something in response. 

“Hey, are you awake?” 

No response this time, either.

“Alright. I hope you don’t mind coming home with me, then.”

Haruka slings the robot’s arm over his shoulder and gets ready to drag it inside. When he detangles himself from the pile of garbage, Takane’s glaring at him with her arms folded across her chest and an umbrella over her head, which she extends to him as well.

“You’ll catch cold, idiot.” She growls, but holds the door open for him as he hobbles towards her. Haruka shoots an apologetic thank you as he crosses the threshold, carefully placing the robot on the couch.  The door behind him creaks closed.  Takane throws a warm towel around him for him to try off. She then moves to clean up the plates left over from dinner.

“So you lugged another one home, huh?” She says over her shoulder.

“Yeah, but this one’s special, I can feel it.” Haruka grins again, drying off his hair and folding the wet towel to put on the end table.  He’s already trekking off upstairs to his workshop to fetch his toolbox.

 

 

 

He props the robot against the couch, and rubs a hot towel against the robot’s cheeks, wiping off the specks of grime and dust that have accumulated on his face.  On closer inspection, it really was a well-made robot.  Its cheeks are so lifelike and retained heat better than any other commercial model, so it had to be some sort of private commission. How long had he been out there lying in the pile of garbage, as if ready to be thrown out?  The mechanic frowns, maybe the rain drenched part of his gears?  Then he’d certainly have to fetch some sort of replacement for that the parts that were water damaged.

It would probably drain his financial resources, but at this point Haruka didn’t really care.  He wanted the masterpiece in front of him to open his eyes and say something.  Drying off the other’s hair, Haruka tossed that towel somewhere near the end table before starting to work off the tattered red fabric it was wearing.  The fabric itself wasn’t very high quality, unlike the silk shirts that he often saw on high-grade robots, and was instead something smooth but he could tell it was probably pawned off at a half off sale. The other’s limbs were rather flexible too and smooth to the touch.

He couldn’t help but pinch the robot’s cheeks. Once, twice, thrice.

“ _Wow_ ,”

Incredulous, Haruka looks at his own hand at how he was able to actually pick up the skin. Immediately he pressed the back of his hand to his cheek.   The robot’s skin wasn’t metallic, even though the frame of it was. Whoever had made him had certainly taken special precautions to make it extra lifelike.

Turning to his housemate, Haruka yells, “Takane! Takane! This one’s really realistic! If you didn’t touch him you’d think he was just like a human…!”

 She shot a glance over at them when Haruka had called her name, but she saw Haruka sprawled over the robot with its shirt half-yanked over its body, and her flushed bright red. “Oi! Don’t strip him  _here_ , Haruka! Do it in your bedroom or something…!” Takane hissed through her breath, hiding behind the book and curtly turning her head.

“Huh? I don’t really get it, but if Takane doesn’t want me to do it here, I guess I have no choice.”

 

 

 

Up in his workshop, Haruka managed to yank the t-shirt off the robot’s body to reveal the scars and scratches that decorated its body. There was in one mark in particular that stood out against the pale skin.  There was a splash of red against his Adam’s apple that looked particularly vicious. Although it was repaired, Haruka shivered as he brushed past it, letting his fingers wander gently over the robot’s neck for a moment longer before skirting the rest of its neck to look for a port. Usually the ports were at the back of the head or at the base of neck. 

Haruka didn’t find a port, but there was some sort of etching or tag. Naturally, he wheeled himself around to inspect it. He pushed the robot’s hair out of the way to discover the product number clearly labeled against its skin. Haruka’s eyes widened.  So it  _was_  a special one after all.  Most commercial brands didn’t put their trademarks on the robot’s neck but rather where the ports were.  None of them made robots this lifelike, either. 

“Kisaragi… Shintaro, is it?” The mechanic smiled a little to himself, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Shintaro. I hope we can be friends when you wake up.” 

But that didn’t solve the problem of Shintaro still not having any ports to run a diagnostic.  He couldn’t wake Shintaro up if he didn’t know what was wrong with him.   Brushing his hand along shintaro’s back, still marvelling at the quality of skin that had been built into Shintaro, his hands bumped into a little notch, and then several more that were flesh coloured. No wonder why he didn’t find them.

Unscrewing the notches and removing the tiny screws, Haruka discovered a detachable panel.  When he pulled it open, the smell of copper and rust assaulted his nose.  The mechanic coughed at the smell, and when he recovered, he tried to glance into Shintaro’s wiring. His face scrunched a little in disgust. Whoever took care of the robot before clearly didn’t respect it well enough to not dump it in the rain.

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Haruka huffed, reaching for his goggles and gloves.  He flicked on the little flashlight he had modded into his goggles, and began to remove and scrub out the rotted wires and gears.

He did, however, make note of the tiny gear that remained in perfect shape near Shintaro’s heart despite the decrepit state the rest of his body had been in.  There was a tiny snake that curled around its spokes. When he reached up to remove it, it wouldn’t budge, so Haruka left it alone.

“It must be important for it to be so tightly wound to you, huh? Anyway, I hope this doesn’t hurt too much, Shintaro.”

 

 

Sometime later in the night, the robot’s dark eyes flutter open, readjusting to the light around him.  He glances at the mechanic asleep on the workbench, and then at the machine parts surrounding him.  The light above him is a tad too bright.

 He mumbles something in confusion, but the mechanic does not stir.  Silently, the dark haired robot closes his eyes and waits for morning.

**Author's Note:**

> heyyyyy why not
> 
> setting notes will probably come later and make more sense as time goes on but basically shintaro is a robot and haruka is a mechanic who lives with takane uuu
> 
> co-written with my super moe girlfriend


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